Until the End
Chapter 20
Remembrance
The bodies were numerous.
It hadn't taken Parker long to realize that it was going to take about as long as the actual battle to collect and deal with all the dead. Despite the instructions the soldiers had been given, some men failed to place a dog-tag into their boot, and in the process of fighting, many soldiers lost their tags and were piled in the 'unidentified' category. It may seem brutal but it was the simplest way of organizing the dead. Another problem arose, and Parker would be damned if he knew what to do. The Japanese had surrendered, and there was also the large abundance of dead Japanese soldiers. Since very few of the American and Russian forces could speak or read Japanese, it was decided that a few Japanese soldiers would be able to go through the dead and identify the fallen soldiers.
That was what Parker was doing at the moment, with the early morning sun pouring over the treetops. He led a small congregation of prisoners through the mass of enemy bodies, finding dog-tags and piling them in helmets by the alphabetical system. It was simple, but efficient, and they were able to very quickly organize all the dog-tags that they had found. He let the Japanese prisoners get to work, and left them alone while he walked around, taking in the sights. He wasn't worried very worried that the prisoners would manage to get away. The closest thing to civilization was Alden, and there were very few roads that led into the city from the south.
The battlefield was no longer recognizable, it was burned out, and Parker failed to detect any traces of snow that had been there before. Scorched earth stretched as far as the eye could see, and Parker forced himself to look away. As he did so, he caught sight of a Russian lieutenant making his way over to him.
"Lieutenant," Parker greeted, returning his salute.
"I'm sorry to bother you sir, but we've found the General."
Parker nodded absently and followed the lieutenant down the steep hillside until they reached the fallen corpse of General Petrov. There was a large group of Russian soldiers scattered about the area, all looking with remorseful eyes towards their fallen commander. Phil stared at the man's open eyes for a moment before turning to the lieutenant.
"Why don't you go help with body identification," General Parker suggested, but in a tone that was an order.
The lieutenant nodded and called for everybody to leave the area for now.
Once the soldiers had departed, Parker knelt down and sat in the churned up earth, alongside the body of General Petrov. During the battle, Parker had only seen General Petrov once, and that had been in the middle. Petrov must have grabbed the M-79 from a fallen Green Beret because Parker could not remember seeing the general with it before the battle. General Petrov had been running out of coverage and shooting the M-79 at a particular Chinese Light tank that was harassing a Russian unit. The General had obviously hit the tank, for the explosion that shortly followed was enough to make Parker avert his eyes in fear of damaging them.
As he looked at General Petrov's body, Parker was able to conclude that Petrov had not been killed by shrapnel. In fact, Parker thought as he more closely observed Petrov's body, he had not been hit at all. Parker felt along Petrov's throat and concluded that he was indeed dead, but as to why he was dead he did not know. It took a moment of careful thinking to come to his answer.
A heart attack! General Petrov was 62 years old, far too old to be running under heavy fire holding a grenade launcher at port arms and firing at a tank. Parker shook his head sadly. He reached up and closed the general's eyes and went for his dog-tags, but his hand instead found the enveloped letter that his wife had sent him, and that Parker had commented on before the battle.
"Looks like you won't be able to read this one my friend," Parker said quietly out loud. He gently placed the envelope back inside General Petrov's fatigue jacket and lifted his dog-tags from around his neck. Parker came to the immediate conclusion that he would write the letter to General Petrov's wife.
A shuffling noise behind him caught his attention and turned. Lieutenant Gogol was walking over to where Parker sat. His face was expressionless, aside from being tired. Parker noticed that Gogol was favoring his leg with a limp.
"Is that General Petrov?" Gogol asked as he sat down.
"Yeah, looks like he suffered a heart attack some time during the battle," Parker replied sadly.
"Yeah I know," Gogol said. Parker looked at him curiously. "When we came busting in here later on I saw him firing a handgun at a Chinese tank. When he finally gave up on that he tossed a grenade down underneath the tank and turned to run, but he fell and I presumed he got hit."
Parker looked at Gogol with incredulous eyes. "Are you saying that he was in the back of the Chinese ranks firing?" Gogol nodded. "Jesus Christ, the last time I saw him he was running straight at them firing an M-79, and it was about four hours into the battle."
Gogol chuckled. "I guess he really raised some hell then."
Parker nodded. "I was thinking about saying something corny like, 'this is probably how he would have liked to have gone out'. Luckily I'm not that fucking naïve." Parker laughed a bit. "Christ, I can't wait to see the look on the Chief of Staff's face when I tell him about this. He's going to be shitting bricks when I tell him about Petrov taking an M-79 and blowing up a bunch of fucking Chinese tanks."
"Does this mean that you and the others will be going soon?" Gogol asked.
Parker's expression changed to one of sadness. "Not quite my friend, I don't think that this will be the last battle between us. We have sent the Chinese running, but you can bet by the time they decide to do it again they will have at least twice the fire and man-power that they had this time."
"Then we will lose," Gogol said softly. "Even if Moscow is given enough time to prepare for their strike we will be unable to hold off such a force for more than a few months."
"That is true, but by then I think a few more solutions to this war will have appeared."
"Like what?" Gogol asked.
"Speaking about heroes, I heard a rather interesting thing from a Russian regimental commander," Parker said, clearly changing the subject. "He told me about a very brave second lieutenant that had joined his regiment after his entire platoon had been taken out by mortars, and that, when two Russian sergeants went down from sniper fire, he stood up, in plain sight, firing at the two snipers, killing both of them and getting wounded in the leg. Now who do you think he was talking about?"
Gogol blushed and managed to look embarrassed. "I was acting on pure instincts actually. Once the snipers took out those two guys, they started to shoot at them again and I got pretty angry. I'm not even too sure about how far they actually were from my position but I got them both. Now that I think about it, it was some pretty good shooting on my part."
"You modest sonofabitch!" Parker shouted, whilst laughing. "I take it you haven't heard the scuttlebutt going around about you. First, you take out a fucking jeep and kill the commanding officer of the Chinese, and then, you survive a mortar barrage, and after that, you go and kill two snipers, saving the life of a Russian sergeant and taking a round to the leg. You're a fucking hero Gregory, you better get used to it."
If it had been possible, Gogol looked even more embarrassed.
"Were in a hard line of work Gregory," Parker said, his voice soft. "And it's easy for people to just forget about what they're doing and allow all this to consume them. Not all men can be soldiers; they're just not cut out for it. But other people, people like you and me, they live for this, the chance to face the enemy at the far end of the field and have your heart racing with excitement as you pour your very existence into your every action. No one else on earth can claim that they have risked their lives in the way that we do, we fight for our country, and we will die for our country. It's as simple as that."
Gogol smiled at Parker. "You are a magnificent person, do you know that?"
"Yes," Parker said and they laughed. "Now let's head back, I'm sure that there's something for us to do rather than sit down and toot each others horns."
Gogol nodded and began to climb up the hill when he sensed that Parker was not behind him. Looking back, he saw Parker very delicately lifting General Petrov into his hands.
Parker met Gogol's questioning stare as he started up the hill.
"He deserves better than to lie in the destruction his enemies inflicted on his country," Parker said quietly. "He was a soldier until the end, a Russian to the very core."
Gogol nodded, because he could not think of anything to say. General Parker was most assuredly crying, for there were tears on his face.
================
The medic took another close look at Lieutenant Saotome's forehead. His fingers probed the area and every time he got near the large bump, Lieutenant Saotome would hiss with pain. Under orders from the lieutenant, he was not to be given any pain killers.
"Lieutenant, since you've been awake, have you been feeling dizzy?" the medic asked.
"Yeah," Ranma responded.
"In what situations, just when your walking or when you bend over?"
"When I got up I could have sworn that the entire goddamned sky was fucking spinning, and it still hasn't stopped. I've been trying to keep my eyes focused on something far away, like the horizon, you know, like when you're sea sick. That's been helping a bit."
The medic nodded his head slowly and wrote something down on his notepad.
"What about headaches, have you been having any of those?"
"Well, before you went and touched the goddamned thing all there was, was a throbbing sensation between my eyes, kind of like a migraine I guess. Plus, it's been really hard to keep my balance, like I'll go to take a step and I'll forget where to be placing my feet. I head to get Yoshida here to help me or I think I'd be back at my tent trying to get to my feet still."
The medic's head bobbed again, and then he stood up off the cold ground. He brushed the snow off of his legs and looked straight into Ranma's eyes.
"I'm not going to lie to you lieutenant. From the looks of things, it would seem that you have got a concussion, a rather bad one at that. I'm restricting all activities and you will be kept immobile until we can get you to a proper medical facility."
Ranma nodded his head slowly.
As the medic turned to walk away, he cast a very quick glance back at Sergeant Yoshida, who had been silent as he leaned back against a tree.
"I want you to watch over the lieutenant as well sergeant. If anything changes in his condition I want you to tell me right away. Now take him back to his tent and for god's sake don't let anything aggravate the concussion anymore."
Yoshida looked down at Ranma who was looking like he was going faint.
"You alright there lieutenant?" Yoshida asked as he set a hand on Ranma's shoulder to steady him. Ranma glanced upwards and smiled slightly.
"I would really appreciate it if you could help me back to my tent sergeant," Ranma said quietly.
Once they got back to Ranma's tent, Ranma had began to feel woozy, something Yoshida took to be a bad sign. He was about to go call the medic when Ranma stopped him.
"It's alright Kenji, I think I just might throw up is all," Ranma said softly. "So come sit down here and talk to me."
Yoshida plopped down beside Ranma's sleeping bag and pushed his knees up to his chest so he could rest his chin on the top of his knees.
They were silent for a long time before Ranma finally spoke.
"Come on now Kenji, surely there's something that's been on your mind for awhile so spill it."
Yoshida looked uncomfortable for a moment before speaking.
"Lieutenant, when you were unconscious, you were saying some things. Some very weird things."
"Oh jeez, don't tell me I admitted that I loved you did I?"
"No sir," Yoshida chuckled. "Nothing like that. But you were saying stuff about what I presume is your family."
"Ah," Ranma said. "Was it about someone named Akane?" Yoshida nodded. "Kagome, Akari, Ryoga, stuff like that right?"
Yoshida nodded.
"Well, before you go alert the commander that I've been having dreams about my family, why don't you have a look at my wallet? It's in the side pocket of my fatigue pants; I don't think that I'll be able to reach it myself."
Yoshida carefully extracted Ranma's wallet and opened it up.
"Look behind my AGO card," Ranma said. Yoshida did so and pulled out a stack of pictures. They were slightly worn, but still in good condition. Yoshida looked at the first picture. It was of a very attractive woman holding an adorable little girl. He showed it to Ranma.
"My wife and daughter. Akane's the one with blue hair and Kagome's my little girl."
"They're beautiful," Yoshida blurted.
"Yeah," Ranma responded sadly.
Yoshida flipped to the next picture. This one was of a young woman with long black hair and what appeared to be pink liners running through her hair. She wore a demure expression, one that made her appear not even twenty years old.
"That's Akari," Ranma said when he was shown the picture. "She's Akane's best friend and mine too. She's got a little boy, Ryoga Jr, named after his father."
"When you were talking before you were apologizing to Akari, and to a Ryoga, I take it you were talking to the father."
"Ryoga was killed about four years ago," Ranma said. "I know that everyone doesn't think it was my fault but I can't accept that."
"Did you know this Ryoga very well?" Yoshida asked.
Ranma snorted, a move that served to make his head pound.
"I'd known him since the beginning of High School. 'Friends' isn't a term to describe us back then; 'rivals' is more like it. We'd always fight. But we were always there for each other, and it wasn't long before we finally decided that we were best friends, and we'd always been that way."
"When you say rivals I take it you mean with your martial arts right?" Yoshida asked.
"Yeah," Ranma chuckled. "Ryoga was the only guy I'd ever met that was around my age and could continuously put up a good fight."
"How did he die?" Yoshida asked.
"I'd rather not talk about that right now," Ranma said stiffly.
Yoshida nodded his head in understanding. He shuffled through the pictures before returning Ranma's wallet.
"You have a beautiful family lieutenant," Yoshida said.
"When we get out of here sergeant, I'm taking you to meet them. I know Akane's going to be happy to see the man that saved her husband's life too many times to count."
Yoshida smiled. "I'd like that sir." He paused but went on. "Sir, there was one more person you were talking to in your sleep."
"Oh yeah, who was it?" Ranma asked.
Yoshida looked at Ranma's face. "Who's Phil?"
===============
Author's Notes: A short chapter after the relatively long one I just wrote. Ah, it is a pleasure to see that people are still reading this story, and I want to thank all those that have been reviewing.
A little side note. I know a lot of people are probably wondering about Ryoga. I mean, is he ever going to come back into the story? Yes, but you have to be patient. I've been thinking about the perfect way to bring him back in and I must sadly report that it will probably be in the final stages of the story. So for all you Ryoga fans, I beg for forgiveness. If I promise to make sure he's in the story as much as possible from now on will that appease you?
Chapter 20
Remembrance
The bodies were numerous.
It hadn't taken Parker long to realize that it was going to take about as long as the actual battle to collect and deal with all the dead. Despite the instructions the soldiers had been given, some men failed to place a dog-tag into their boot, and in the process of fighting, many soldiers lost their tags and were piled in the 'unidentified' category. It may seem brutal but it was the simplest way of organizing the dead. Another problem arose, and Parker would be damned if he knew what to do. The Japanese had surrendered, and there was also the large abundance of dead Japanese soldiers. Since very few of the American and Russian forces could speak or read Japanese, it was decided that a few Japanese soldiers would be able to go through the dead and identify the fallen soldiers.
That was what Parker was doing at the moment, with the early morning sun pouring over the treetops. He led a small congregation of prisoners through the mass of enemy bodies, finding dog-tags and piling them in helmets by the alphabetical system. It was simple, but efficient, and they were able to very quickly organize all the dog-tags that they had found. He let the Japanese prisoners get to work, and left them alone while he walked around, taking in the sights. He wasn't worried very worried that the prisoners would manage to get away. The closest thing to civilization was Alden, and there were very few roads that led into the city from the south.
The battlefield was no longer recognizable, it was burned out, and Parker failed to detect any traces of snow that had been there before. Scorched earth stretched as far as the eye could see, and Parker forced himself to look away. As he did so, he caught sight of a Russian lieutenant making his way over to him.
"Lieutenant," Parker greeted, returning his salute.
"I'm sorry to bother you sir, but we've found the General."
Parker nodded absently and followed the lieutenant down the steep hillside until they reached the fallen corpse of General Petrov. There was a large group of Russian soldiers scattered about the area, all looking with remorseful eyes towards their fallen commander. Phil stared at the man's open eyes for a moment before turning to the lieutenant.
"Why don't you go help with body identification," General Parker suggested, but in a tone that was an order.
The lieutenant nodded and called for everybody to leave the area for now.
Once the soldiers had departed, Parker knelt down and sat in the churned up earth, alongside the body of General Petrov. During the battle, Parker had only seen General Petrov once, and that had been in the middle. Petrov must have grabbed the M-79 from a fallen Green Beret because Parker could not remember seeing the general with it before the battle. General Petrov had been running out of coverage and shooting the M-79 at a particular Chinese Light tank that was harassing a Russian unit. The General had obviously hit the tank, for the explosion that shortly followed was enough to make Parker avert his eyes in fear of damaging them.
As he looked at General Petrov's body, Parker was able to conclude that Petrov had not been killed by shrapnel. In fact, Parker thought as he more closely observed Petrov's body, he had not been hit at all. Parker felt along Petrov's throat and concluded that he was indeed dead, but as to why he was dead he did not know. It took a moment of careful thinking to come to his answer.
A heart attack! General Petrov was 62 years old, far too old to be running under heavy fire holding a grenade launcher at port arms and firing at a tank. Parker shook his head sadly. He reached up and closed the general's eyes and went for his dog-tags, but his hand instead found the enveloped letter that his wife had sent him, and that Parker had commented on before the battle.
"Looks like you won't be able to read this one my friend," Parker said quietly out loud. He gently placed the envelope back inside General Petrov's fatigue jacket and lifted his dog-tags from around his neck. Parker came to the immediate conclusion that he would write the letter to General Petrov's wife.
A shuffling noise behind him caught his attention and turned. Lieutenant Gogol was walking over to where Parker sat. His face was expressionless, aside from being tired. Parker noticed that Gogol was favoring his leg with a limp.
"Is that General Petrov?" Gogol asked as he sat down.
"Yeah, looks like he suffered a heart attack some time during the battle," Parker replied sadly.
"Yeah I know," Gogol said. Parker looked at him curiously. "When we came busting in here later on I saw him firing a handgun at a Chinese tank. When he finally gave up on that he tossed a grenade down underneath the tank and turned to run, but he fell and I presumed he got hit."
Parker looked at Gogol with incredulous eyes. "Are you saying that he was in the back of the Chinese ranks firing?" Gogol nodded. "Jesus Christ, the last time I saw him he was running straight at them firing an M-79, and it was about four hours into the battle."
Gogol chuckled. "I guess he really raised some hell then."
Parker nodded. "I was thinking about saying something corny like, 'this is probably how he would have liked to have gone out'. Luckily I'm not that fucking naïve." Parker laughed a bit. "Christ, I can't wait to see the look on the Chief of Staff's face when I tell him about this. He's going to be shitting bricks when I tell him about Petrov taking an M-79 and blowing up a bunch of fucking Chinese tanks."
"Does this mean that you and the others will be going soon?" Gogol asked.
Parker's expression changed to one of sadness. "Not quite my friend, I don't think that this will be the last battle between us. We have sent the Chinese running, but you can bet by the time they decide to do it again they will have at least twice the fire and man-power that they had this time."
"Then we will lose," Gogol said softly. "Even if Moscow is given enough time to prepare for their strike we will be unable to hold off such a force for more than a few months."
"That is true, but by then I think a few more solutions to this war will have appeared."
"Like what?" Gogol asked.
"Speaking about heroes, I heard a rather interesting thing from a Russian regimental commander," Parker said, clearly changing the subject. "He told me about a very brave second lieutenant that had joined his regiment after his entire platoon had been taken out by mortars, and that, when two Russian sergeants went down from sniper fire, he stood up, in plain sight, firing at the two snipers, killing both of them and getting wounded in the leg. Now who do you think he was talking about?"
Gogol blushed and managed to look embarrassed. "I was acting on pure instincts actually. Once the snipers took out those two guys, they started to shoot at them again and I got pretty angry. I'm not even too sure about how far they actually were from my position but I got them both. Now that I think about it, it was some pretty good shooting on my part."
"You modest sonofabitch!" Parker shouted, whilst laughing. "I take it you haven't heard the scuttlebutt going around about you. First, you take out a fucking jeep and kill the commanding officer of the Chinese, and then, you survive a mortar barrage, and after that, you go and kill two snipers, saving the life of a Russian sergeant and taking a round to the leg. You're a fucking hero Gregory, you better get used to it."
If it had been possible, Gogol looked even more embarrassed.
"Were in a hard line of work Gregory," Parker said, his voice soft. "And it's easy for people to just forget about what they're doing and allow all this to consume them. Not all men can be soldiers; they're just not cut out for it. But other people, people like you and me, they live for this, the chance to face the enemy at the far end of the field and have your heart racing with excitement as you pour your very existence into your every action. No one else on earth can claim that they have risked their lives in the way that we do, we fight for our country, and we will die for our country. It's as simple as that."
Gogol smiled at Parker. "You are a magnificent person, do you know that?"
"Yes," Parker said and they laughed. "Now let's head back, I'm sure that there's something for us to do rather than sit down and toot each others horns."
Gogol nodded and began to climb up the hill when he sensed that Parker was not behind him. Looking back, he saw Parker very delicately lifting General Petrov into his hands.
Parker met Gogol's questioning stare as he started up the hill.
"He deserves better than to lie in the destruction his enemies inflicted on his country," Parker said quietly. "He was a soldier until the end, a Russian to the very core."
Gogol nodded, because he could not think of anything to say. General Parker was most assuredly crying, for there were tears on his face.
================
The medic took another close look at Lieutenant Saotome's forehead. His fingers probed the area and every time he got near the large bump, Lieutenant Saotome would hiss with pain. Under orders from the lieutenant, he was not to be given any pain killers.
"Lieutenant, since you've been awake, have you been feeling dizzy?" the medic asked.
"Yeah," Ranma responded.
"In what situations, just when your walking or when you bend over?"
"When I got up I could have sworn that the entire goddamned sky was fucking spinning, and it still hasn't stopped. I've been trying to keep my eyes focused on something far away, like the horizon, you know, like when you're sea sick. That's been helping a bit."
The medic nodded his head slowly and wrote something down on his notepad.
"What about headaches, have you been having any of those?"
"Well, before you went and touched the goddamned thing all there was, was a throbbing sensation between my eyes, kind of like a migraine I guess. Plus, it's been really hard to keep my balance, like I'll go to take a step and I'll forget where to be placing my feet. I head to get Yoshida here to help me or I think I'd be back at my tent trying to get to my feet still."
The medic's head bobbed again, and then he stood up off the cold ground. He brushed the snow off of his legs and looked straight into Ranma's eyes.
"I'm not going to lie to you lieutenant. From the looks of things, it would seem that you have got a concussion, a rather bad one at that. I'm restricting all activities and you will be kept immobile until we can get you to a proper medical facility."
Ranma nodded his head slowly.
As the medic turned to walk away, he cast a very quick glance back at Sergeant Yoshida, who had been silent as he leaned back against a tree.
"I want you to watch over the lieutenant as well sergeant. If anything changes in his condition I want you to tell me right away. Now take him back to his tent and for god's sake don't let anything aggravate the concussion anymore."
Yoshida looked down at Ranma who was looking like he was going faint.
"You alright there lieutenant?" Yoshida asked as he set a hand on Ranma's shoulder to steady him. Ranma glanced upwards and smiled slightly.
"I would really appreciate it if you could help me back to my tent sergeant," Ranma said quietly.
Once they got back to Ranma's tent, Ranma had began to feel woozy, something Yoshida took to be a bad sign. He was about to go call the medic when Ranma stopped him.
"It's alright Kenji, I think I just might throw up is all," Ranma said softly. "So come sit down here and talk to me."
Yoshida plopped down beside Ranma's sleeping bag and pushed his knees up to his chest so he could rest his chin on the top of his knees.
They were silent for a long time before Ranma finally spoke.
"Come on now Kenji, surely there's something that's been on your mind for awhile so spill it."
Yoshida looked uncomfortable for a moment before speaking.
"Lieutenant, when you were unconscious, you were saying some things. Some very weird things."
"Oh jeez, don't tell me I admitted that I loved you did I?"
"No sir," Yoshida chuckled. "Nothing like that. But you were saying stuff about what I presume is your family."
"Ah," Ranma said. "Was it about someone named Akane?" Yoshida nodded. "Kagome, Akari, Ryoga, stuff like that right?"
Yoshida nodded.
"Well, before you go alert the commander that I've been having dreams about my family, why don't you have a look at my wallet? It's in the side pocket of my fatigue pants; I don't think that I'll be able to reach it myself."
Yoshida carefully extracted Ranma's wallet and opened it up.
"Look behind my AGO card," Ranma said. Yoshida did so and pulled out a stack of pictures. They were slightly worn, but still in good condition. Yoshida looked at the first picture. It was of a very attractive woman holding an adorable little girl. He showed it to Ranma.
"My wife and daughter. Akane's the one with blue hair and Kagome's my little girl."
"They're beautiful," Yoshida blurted.
"Yeah," Ranma responded sadly.
Yoshida flipped to the next picture. This one was of a young woman with long black hair and what appeared to be pink liners running through her hair. She wore a demure expression, one that made her appear not even twenty years old.
"That's Akari," Ranma said when he was shown the picture. "She's Akane's best friend and mine too. She's got a little boy, Ryoga Jr, named after his father."
"When you were talking before you were apologizing to Akari, and to a Ryoga, I take it you were talking to the father."
"Ryoga was killed about four years ago," Ranma said. "I know that everyone doesn't think it was my fault but I can't accept that."
"Did you know this Ryoga very well?" Yoshida asked.
Ranma snorted, a move that served to make his head pound.
"I'd known him since the beginning of High School. 'Friends' isn't a term to describe us back then; 'rivals' is more like it. We'd always fight. But we were always there for each other, and it wasn't long before we finally decided that we were best friends, and we'd always been that way."
"When you say rivals I take it you mean with your martial arts right?" Yoshida asked.
"Yeah," Ranma chuckled. "Ryoga was the only guy I'd ever met that was around my age and could continuously put up a good fight."
"How did he die?" Yoshida asked.
"I'd rather not talk about that right now," Ranma said stiffly.
Yoshida nodded his head in understanding. He shuffled through the pictures before returning Ranma's wallet.
"You have a beautiful family lieutenant," Yoshida said.
"When we get out of here sergeant, I'm taking you to meet them. I know Akane's going to be happy to see the man that saved her husband's life too many times to count."
Yoshida smiled. "I'd like that sir." He paused but went on. "Sir, there was one more person you were talking to in your sleep."
"Oh yeah, who was it?" Ranma asked.
Yoshida looked at Ranma's face. "Who's Phil?"
===============
Author's Notes: A short chapter after the relatively long one I just wrote. Ah, it is a pleasure to see that people are still reading this story, and I want to thank all those that have been reviewing.
A little side note. I know a lot of people are probably wondering about Ryoga. I mean, is he ever going to come back into the story? Yes, but you have to be patient. I've been thinking about the perfect way to bring him back in and I must sadly report that it will probably be in the final stages of the story. So for all you Ryoga fans, I beg for forgiveness. If I promise to make sure he's in the story as much as possible from now on will that appease you?